


All The Moments Kept

by catherineisa



Category: Psych
Genre: 2014 archival, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:21:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherineisa/pseuds/catherineisa
Summary: shawn photographs everything for better or worseorwhat happens when everyone finds out that shawn has a hobby





	All The Moments Kept

**Author's Note:**

> Specific date are air dates of eps or actual in show dates

Shawn Spencer always had a camera on him, whether it was his phone, a throwaway or that really nice camera Gus impulse bought after they'd graduated high school. He was always taking pictures and most of the time no one was even aware of it, even Gus.

The hobby had started after he'd graduated high school when Gus had left for college and he'd had all those jobs; Shawn would always keep little snaps of friends and snippets of things he found amusing.  
He'd even went to a craft store and bought little black storage boxes for all of the photos and kept them neatly labelled and kept under his bed.  
They were organized by year and then again by how much he cared about the subject of the photo. It was the one aspect of his life that was truly organized and it was one of the few things he kept from Gus-and especially from his dad- he'd wanted the photo albums that his dad had stashed for so many years but he didn't know how to ask without raising red flags and the one time he did try it was disastrous.

 

"Hey dad, can I have all those old scrapbooks in the attic." It was one of those days that Henry had made Shawn come over for free labor and Shawn had offhandedly made the comment; Henry stopped suddenly and turned to Shawn "Why the hell would you want those, so you can burn them and tell everyone you had fun doing it." The comment caught Shawn off guard 'is that really what my own father thinks of me' He looked hurt and Henry regretted it but he certainly wasn't going to be the one to apologize, not yet at least.

A couple days later and Henry was still thinking about it. Deciding that there could possibly be another reason that Shawn wanted those albums he pulls the drawstring for the attic and sighs dropping all of his plans for the day when he sees the mess of the attic and climbs the ladder to sort it out and possibly reconcile with his memories.

It's a couple days later when Henry gets the attic straight and a couple more when he hauls the boxes over to Shawn's house. 

Shawn is visibly flustered when he opens the door and won't even actually open it all of the way.  
"Would you help me with these boxes before I throw my back out?"  
Shawn still kept the door cracked an inch and just suggested "hmm why don't you just leave them out here at the door okay I'll get them when you leave, yeah?"  
Henry tried to push the door open ajar when he's met with surprising strength and a push back "What could you possibly be doing in there?" 

"I wasn't expecting guests and I'm -" Shawn flounders to find an embarrassing enough excuse but he has very little shame so he settles on "PORN I'm watching porn okay."  
Henry isn't convinced and when Shawn isn't expecting it he pushes the door again and Shawn falls down opening the door finally opens a breadth.

Henry's surprised to see boxes and boxes of what he can soon tell are photos and plastic blue dividers covered in white out and relabeled by year, neatly placed on the counter and marked where photos had been taken out.  
Shawn was on the floor still and laying with his head on his arm eyes covered waiting for Henry to berate him for reasons not entirely unknown.

Something that Shawn never could've anticipated was that Henry would be proud of him "Found something you liked and stuck to it didn't you, Son."  
Shawn Looked up finally blinking with surprise at Henry's warm tone which he'd rarely ever heard "Yeah, I guess I did"  
Shawn finally hoisted himself off of the soft carpet and walked over to the counter. where he dumped out his most recent batch of photos and clipped the receipt to put in the drawer.  
"when did all of this" He stops to gesture and the cleanly organized collection "Start?"  
Shawn shrugged "Gus left for college, and I needed something to keep my mind off of it so I got a whole bunch of jobs and documented them. I guess I figured out I liked it" 

The photos were laying out on the counter now and they sat in silence while Shawn organized them out into piles by person or subject. The photos weren't blurry for the most part and there were a lot of them with some of him even, sitting behind his desk and working concentrating on whatever case Shawn had just solved. He picked up a pile that wasn't his own and quickly figured it was Lassiter's.

 

The photos taken of Lassiter were careful, guarded somehow in the beginning and then they loosened up as time went on. Some of the placards said specified dates or places like Canada or Lassie's House  
Some of the photos are themselves labelled

 

July 7, 2006/ Lassiter looks young and angry facing slightly away from the camera talking to Lucinda Berry caption "I regret causing her transfer but then would I have ever met Jules"

JULY 2006 Picture of Lassiter looking tired sitting back in his chair reading a case file 

There are about three hundred photos for each month of each year and there's a separate box for one's that Shawn has deemed not good enough for the box which are blurry or just not good but still not bad enough to be just thrown away.

August 2007  
Juliet has a coffee and a case file and is chatting happily with Buzz 

2006-2012 are mostly things that he can recognize from being asked for outside help. Certain others though are a mystery to him though like  
26 January 2007 Lassiter laying on the floor of a bar and a picture or Shawn taken by Lassiter who can be seen in the glass behind Shawn 

There are other ones where it's Shawn Taken by another person but those are separated into yet another box labeled "How other people view me"  
And then a self portraits box that's mostly empty with the label "How I view myself"

Another box labeled 'Date Night' with subdivides like Worse to Best and then Year.

This box startles Henry though as he never thought that his son was able to keep too many secrets but the box is full of pictures of pretty women and attractive men, Lassiter included. Shawn splutters and grabs the box but not after Henry had gotten enough of a look into the box. Shawn held it close to his chest and looked down, voice low 

"I don't think I was ever going to tell you."  
"Why not?" Henry had never realized it but now that he'd heard it a lot of things clicked in his mind "you know, I thought I knew everything about you, aside from all of the jobs. but.." Henry pauses "You know some of these things were so obvious now I mean that huge Val Kilmer poster. But something that should've tipped me off was that damn psychic letter to Lassiter and all that flirting. You sat in his damn lap and it went over my head."  
Shawn was definitely somewhat relieved but still somewhat on edge like Henry might explode, but he didn't he just took the date box back and carefully took some of the photos out and gently set them down on the table hoping not to startle Shawn into running away and never mentioning it again but this was a talk he knew they needed to have.  
There were a couple of pictures of the same people but not very many, Abigail and Lassiter mostly but the way the photos were taken was different as well to the other boxes. They were aware, the subject was looking directly into the camera (and although in some of the other boxes they were looking into the camera you could tell they didn't know they were being captured) In some of the photos of Lassiter he was happily looking at Shawn and laughing at something unknown to Henry.

All of the photos had a certain kind of nervous happy energy to them and even though for Henry it was another day of fishing scratched he was happy to have gotten to know his son a little better.

 

Gus wasn't very happy with Henry at any given moment so when Henry swings by the Psych office when Shawn leaves he's suspicious  
His stance is awkward and he's slightly hunched over. "Did you know of Shawn's" he pauses and Gus immediately badgers him "Of Shawn's what, What did you do to him this time?" Gus' arms were folded over his chest and he looked cautiously out the window hoping to possibly save Shawn from having to talk to his father. 

"His photography hobby and his -" Henry pauses again never having said the word aloud "Bisexuality."  
Gus softens a bit but not much

"What photography hobby?" 

Gus of course already knows about Shawn's duel interest and doesn't care much as long as he's safe and happy. (And as long as Carlton Lassiter doesn't break his heart.)

Henry puts his hands up and backs up a little before turning to leave. "Maybe ask him?"

 

Gus doesn't, He uses his lock-trickery (He refuses to call it what it what it is) to get into Shawn's house and look around. 

He opens Shawn's closet to find the most organized collection of little black card boxes he's possibly ever seen -even in a magazine- and he starts to pull them out one keeping order intact and laying them out on the bed not worrying about Shawn coming in as he'd said that he was going to follow up a lead that was three hours away and Gus hadn't wanted to go along. He'd leant him the Blueberry and set up strict guidelines that he knew were fruitless.

He'd spent several hours looking through photos of Shawn And Himself and seemingly everyone they'd talked to but more-so friends and family Juliet and Carlton And Buzz. Gus had lost track of time and fallen asleep nearer to the end of the box run.

When Shawn had gotten home he'd immediately known it was Gus in his house but had first thought he was there to water his plants but grew confused to find the plants bone dry and a shirt taken out of rotation. After watering his plants and looking around a bit he'd found that Gus had raided his fridge and eaten most everything.

He'd eventually gone to get ready for bed and found the one and only Burton Guster laying asleep in his bed with pictures in fallen piles across the bed and the last box open.

He'd reorganized the box quickly and quietly and put it gently into the closet before shutting the door and shoving Gus awake "MmMfRph"  
"Get up or move over. I'm tired"  
Gus slid over and fell back asleep 

 

 

It was useless to pretend he'd done nothing wrong and he knew it.  
Burton Guster was in trouble, he wanted to apologize but didn't know how and was just sitting there eating what was left of the cereal in Shawn's kitchen area (A fridge. A microwave. A hot plate.)

Shawn had assured him it was fine and then left deciding to walk to the Psych office leaving the Blueberry for Gus.

His worry evaporated when he saw Shawn at the Psych office catching fruit loops in his mouth and cheering himself on.  
"So you're not mad that I blatantly invaded your privacy."  
"No dude. I do it to you enough." Gus nodded "You know that's right." Shawn laughed loudly and nearly choked on a fruit loop.

 

At the precinct later Gus finally noticed how much Shawn actually took photos. Gus had always thought that Shawn was playing a game or texting but he finally saw that when he was being debriefed that Shawn took pictures of Vick and Juliet but most of all Lassiter. When he wasn't having a "Psychic Vision" he was sat angled at Carlton with his phone in hand and Lassiter seemed to know what he was doing or at least was aware that something was happening. Juliet was too busy taking in everything that Karen said to notice that something else was happening.

 

He'd casually mentioned the fact that he was big into photography to Juliet when she'd gotten really excited and demanded to see all of it. So they found themselves in the Psych office going over most of the old photos (omitting anything about his relationship to Lassie until he was clear with him that he was ready) of Juliet and Shawn and Gus and the occasional Lassie so as not to raise suspicion. 

 

Shawn and Lassiter had been dating for five months before Carlton had been comfortable enough to stay over and Shawn certainly wasn't going to pressure him and break their relationship or strain it at all.

Lassiter had thought it was kind of weird that Shawn lived in a Laundromat but he got used to it eventually and found it fitting. As odd as it seemed it was homey and Lassiter daresay nice for what it was.

but one his second night over he forgot that the whole "house" was a closet and opened the actual closet to find the photos he was impressed that Shawn was so organized even if it was just this one part of his life and he kept it secret he'd asked Shawn what it was and he'd gotten flustered but eventually explained Gus going to college, the little cameras, the one really nice camera and his phone.  
He'd explained that he was comforted by it that it was one of few things he was truly good at and wherever he went it was a constant that he'd had a hard drive and finally printed them all out and bought the labels and boxes and sat for a whole couple of days organizing them for easy access to the best and worst memories he'd ever had. 

 

Sitting there looking through what was essentially most of Shawn's life, with Shawn propped up next to him telling goofy stories about what shenanigans they'd been up to was the happiest and most comfortable Carlton Lassiter had ever been.

**Author's Note:**

> https://static.bhphoto.com/images/images500x500/Pioneer_Photo_Albums_B1BLK_Photo_Video_Storage_Box_Black_1552412303000_386938.jpg


End file.
